After the announcement of the death of a member, the great Law Lord, Lord Bridge of Harwich, the House took questions on the Metropolitan Police Commissioner; the threat of a Turkish invasion of Northern Iraq in response to PKK attacks; whether there are plans for further high-speed railway lines within the United Kingdom; and the the eradication of poppy cultivation in Afghanistan.

A number of motions relating to secondary legislation were agreed to. The 5th Report from the Select Committee on Procedure was agreed to. This means that Friday sittings will start at 10am with a target finishing time of 3pm and give greater flexibility to the length of Questions for Short Debate.

One of the most interesting proposals, procedurally, is to reword the amendment often used to (attempt to) kill a bill at 2nd Reading. Currently the practice is to move an amendment to the motion “that this bill be now read a second time”, by leaving out “now” and at end insert “this day six months”

Lord Brabazon of Tara told their Lordships:-

"What the Procedure Committee proposes will not in any way limit the existing rights of Members to oppose Bills on Second Reading in the ways that I have just outlined. All we are doing is recommending that the wording be changed for the first of these procedures so that, instead of a dilatory amendment, which appears to postpone Second Reading for six months, we have a clear decision that this House declines to give the Bill a Second Reading.

It may interest noble Lords to know that the form of words “this day six months” became fixed in convention in the first half of the 19th century at the same time as the convention was established that parliamentary Sessions should also last six months; from February to August. The point of the amendment was therefore not to invite the Government to bring back the Bill in six months, but to ensure that the Government could not bring it back until after Parliament had been safely prorogued.

The first example of the six months amendment being used that we can find dates back to 9 April 1832, when an attempt to kill the Great Reform Bill on Second Reading was defeated. Clearly, the opponents of that Bill were not asking the Duke of Wellington to come back with a revised proposal in six months: they wanted to stop reform dead in its tracks.

Let us be clear about the significance of “this day six months”. If such an amendment is passed on Second Reading it means and has always meant that the Bill is dead, as when the Opposition successfully killed the Fraud (Trials without a Jury) Bill in March this year.

Unfortunately, the natural conclusion reached by those outside the House, who are less familiar with our proceedings, is that the six months amendment means that the Bill can be brought back six months later. That was very evident at the time of the Second Reading of the Assisted Dying for the Terminally Ill Bill of the noble Lord, Lord Joffe, in 2006, when the Information Office and the Public Bill Office were bombarded with calls from members of the public who were confused over the significance of what had just happened."

Lord Denham tried to kill the proposal - by moving such an amendment!!!! - but it was withdrawn.

The House then gave the Children and Young Persons Bill a Second Reading. That debate was completed by 7.30. A Question for Short Debate on Restorative Justice followed and the House adjourned at 8.21pm.